PIED STILT | 33 
the backwater once reached, the chick would 
have been rapidly carried down-stream, the parents 
or one of them following on wing for some con- 
siderable distance. At last the little creature 
would have been lost in some raging rapid, and 
the old bird would have returned to the remaining 
chick and eggs. Even, however, in the chick’s 
present desperate strait and with this catastrophe 
foreseen, encouragement only was given, not 
direct assistance. By perpetual calling and piping, 
by wading knee-deep into the water, though not 
actually breaking the wind and the ripple, as 
could have been done, and by spreading themselves 
again and again on the bank in all sorts of alluring 
shelter attitudes, the chick was encouraged him- 
self to redouble his efforts. By a few yards he 
escaped, with at least one lesson thoroughly 
learned, and with moral fibre unimpaired by 
enervating aid. 
Rescue accomplished, the yapping of the anxious 
parents ceased. Silence again fell on the river- 
bed, the male reuniting the parted chicks, the 
hen returning to her yellow bent and eggs. Be- 
cause it was the last evening of my trip I scat- 
tered the scant material of my screen in case it 
should attract attention. Disturbed at the de- 
vastation, and of course unaware of my bene- 
ficent motive, the hen temporarily left her nest. 
It was no long vacation. I saw her presently 
C 
